


Boredom is your personal disease

by Baryshnikov



Series: Boredom & Bedfellows [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Boredom, Character Study, Cheating, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Violence, Multi, Narcissism, Obsession, POV Second Person, Psychopath Tom Riddle, Sane!ButNotNice!Tom, Tom is not nice, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator, Unrequited Love, lying, warped perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 18:58:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19091119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: You sit in the bathroom and stare in the mirror and wonder why does boredom stalk you.





	Boredom is your personal disease

You are chronically bored; it is your disease. Things do not satisfy you for long. You like to sit in the bathroom and just stare at yourself in the mirror, wondering who made you this way. Was it your hopeless father and your dead mother? Or, was it yourself? 

Did all these years and all these people turn you into a monster?

Your reflection never changes, but your insides do. Something has shifted under your flesh, people have left their marks, some more dramatic than others. However much you want them not to affect you, they do, in their own way. 

Each and every one of them has changed you. 

You continue to stare in the mirror, nothing changes; you’ve always loved your face, but it makes your skin crawl. 

You still like them all. 

 

You still like Ginevra, even if she’s dumb. She doesn’t see how you sneak around, not even behind her back anymore, you say you’re going out, and she’s learnt she shouldn’t ask where. 

She wouldn’t like to know. 

It’s not her fault. Ginevra is a pretty little thing, but all pretty little things get worn out sooner or later; her expiration date is right around the corner, and so you’re just doing the natural thing and starting to browse the catalogues for something new. 

Something shiny and pretty and raw. 

Something with her adorable temper because you like that.

The two of you fight more than not, petty arguments that sting because both of you have tongues that are too sharp for your own good. You like to think your rows are works of art, painted in the air with your tongues and sometimes her scratchy little nails.

Sometimes there’s blood. 

Sometimes there’s a lot of it. 

You still have the cuts on your knuckles from when the two of you last fought, you even have a shallow stab wound in your stomach from the moment six months ago when she snapped, but Ginevra has wounds too, though hers are hidden from sight. The largest gashes that she has are the ones in her pride

Because she won’t ever leave.

Because she still loves you. 

She _needs_ you. 

How pathetic. 

Really, this whole liaison should have ended months ago, but she’s the potassium and you’re the hydrochloric acid, you’re aren’t supposed to go together, but when you touch, it’s so reactive. 

Painfully, gorgeously reactive. 

The fights allow you to exercise your nasty side with her, without having to apologise afterwards, and you _love_ your nasty side. Not to mention, Ginevra’s so _good_ when she’s sorry.

So apologetic.

So attentive.

So _willing_. 

It’s a love-hate relationship that rattles between cloying and freeing, between nauseating and liberating, between screams of hatred that reverberate across the room and have your upstairs neighbours complaining, and the moans of pleasure that go on through the night and have your downstairs neighbours complaining.

But as much as you like Ginevra, and your fun, backward relationship coated in a sheen tears and screams and blood, you’re growing bored and you don’t like to be bored.

 

You sit in the bathroom, late at night, staring at the mirror, wondering if your soul is rotting. If there is a God and if he sees your sins. You can’t help but think back to that time you met up with Ginevra at her brother’s birthday, and a boy who looked like you was watching too much from across the room. 

He looked fun. 

 

You still like Lestrange, even if you can’t remember his first name. Not that he seems to care when you let him push you against the door scarcely seconds after his parents have left the sitting room. Eager to taste another man’s spit because he’s still young, and these things are still new. His parents like you. They think you’re respectable; a good influence on their son. 

You’re not. 

But they don’t need to know that. 

Nor do they need to know how much you love their son between your thighs because apparently, his tongue is good at something other than backchat. 

You haven’t known Lestrange for long, but you know what he’s like. You know the violent words that always spill from his mouth, the ones that make his mother blush and his father glare because they’re part of that prestigious old elite, and their son doesn’t understand where his money comes from. You know he likes to turn words into actions too, and always throws the first punch because he’s stupid and impulsive. But such passions aren’t always bad. 

It all depends what he’s fighting against. 

Though you suspect it’s the usual story of a rich boy trying to rebel. Cigarette smoke dragged into his lungs behind people’s back; you can taste it in his mouth. It’s disgusting. You tell him to quit it, late at night, sitting on the edge of a balcony after dark thinking of pushing him off, while he talks about the uprisings of the youth. He thinks he understands poverty because his drinks are always on the rocks, but they’re served in bars with waiters and reservations; his life is simply too expensive to be part of a real revolution. 

He was born too bourgeoise. 

That’s why he admires you. Because you scraped yourself out of the pit of peasant scum. Though his eyes are blurred when he says it, you know he means it. He thinks you’re beneath him. 

You’re not. 

You’re running circles all around him.

And he doesn’t even realise. 

Lestrange fails to understand that just because he’s louder, brasher and considerably more obnoxious, it does not mean he’s in control. 

Quite the opposite in fact.

He’s learning that, now he’s down on his knees, doing those pretty things with his tongue. Your fingers are in his hair and the tip of your shoe is pressing against his groin, rubbing slowly, and he knows he can’t have any satisfaction unless _you_ say he can. 

He wants. 

He _really_ wants. 

But you’re not going to let him have, because he needs to learn his place, otherwise you’re going to get bored ever so quick. 

 

That night you’re back in your bathroom, staring at the mirror, wondering if Lestrange will ever learn how to work his teeth just right. Your mind drifts again, to that boy with the dark hair that likes to stare. You like to stare too. 

You barely know him, but you want him on his knees. 

 

You still like Avery, even if he’s a lovesick fool. He’s rather too romantic for his own good. He thinks this is a courtship of all things, and that you _love_ him. 

You don’t. 

But you don’t correct him either.

If you did, you suspect that he’d be far less willing to do what you want, and what you want is terribly specific. Hurting Ginevra, physically at least, was never an option, and even Lestrange would pick a fight with you if you did, but Avery, well, he wouldn’t dare. 

He loves you so much that he’ll take anything you give. 

It’s fascinating. 

So, you see how far you can take it. You smile at him and kiss his neck. He doesn’t even realise when you use your teeth until he’s standing by the mirror, touching the indents with shaking fingers. He never says anything though. So, you get nastier. 

Biting his lip until his sticky blood rolls down your chin. 

Clenching your fingers around his neck until a spider’s web of red veins are illuminated. 

It’s not safe or sane or remotely consensual, but he’s too scared of losing you to tell you to stop.

Sometimes, your fingers alone can’t achieve the things that you want, but you’re creative and his old schoolboy ties work just as well, to give you that stark red line that you crave. 

Once, you take it too far and he passes out.

You’re frankly disappointed that he continues to breathe. 

He’s got bruises everywhere now. Blue and black that fades to purple in the right light, gorgeous constellations that you trace with your tongue. Everyone says you’re good with your tongue, that somehow you can lick the edges of a broken thing, and it’ll be new again, even if it was coming apart at the seams, splitting open and spilling out like an overfilled sack of grain, you can make it feel whole. 

Make it love you. 

You tell him that you love him.

Even when you’re pressing your nails into the green garden bruises on his ribs. You know he hates them, thinks they’re ugly, but he still touches them, digs his fingers into them when you’re between his legs; not because he’s a masochist, but because he wants to impress you. 

To _please_ you. 

You love the devotion, but the gesture means nothing to you. It’s not Avery’s fault. Well actually, that’s a lie, it’s _all_ his fault, and you tell him that every time you see him.

He’s not special. 

He’s replaceable. 

And you won’t hesitate to replace him if he doesn’t give you what you want. 

You like making him cry. 

But even that is starting to lose its novelty. You wish he’d hate you, that he’d fight back against what you’ve done, but he just _takes_ it. 

It’s sad really. 

 

You’re back in your bathroom. The mirror is misted up from your shower, and your fingers ache from holding Avery’s throat until he passed out. But you’re not thinking about that. Not thinking of his broken body, but that boy’s pristine one. You saw him again on Thursday. His name is Harry, and you can’t stop murmuring it to yourself. 

Harry…

Harry…

Harry… 

 

You still like Alphard, even if he hates you. The two of you were friends once, but all he sees is the bad in people, the nasty bits. Slowly his interest waned, and you replaced him because you can’t stand people who are fickle. That just made him suspicious. _Everything_ makes Alphard suspicious. Your smile was never genuine, and your compliments were always insincere. If you kissed his mouth, he always said you tasted of someone else, which was true, but it was rude of him to point it out. Alphard was the first, and only, might you add, to call you out as a liar. 

Needless to say, he never called you a liar again. 

Alphard always says he doesn’t like you, that he _hates_ you even, but he keeps coming back. You always meet at cheap hotels and you never stay the night. You don’t bring people home, it’s one of your rules, and he doesn’t like you at his house, not when his impressionable little brother is home, though you’ve always said you have no interest in him. 

All your interests lie in Alphard. 

He should know that. 

You show your interest well enough, and he always seems to appreciate it. He’s always begging you for more and more and more and more because he’s a Black and he doesn’t know when to stop. 

You like to take it slow to spite him. To remind him that he comes back to you over and over and over again. That every time he walks away, leaving insults hanging like decorations on every wall, he’ll return. Not that he’ll apologise or grovel or be as good as Ginevra. But he’ll return in three weeks, like a dog to its master. And every time, you’ll take it slower until he’s hot and hopeless and just begging you to stop.

You will.

And _then_ he’ll beg you to continue. 

It’s _adorable_. 

When you tell him that, he spits in your face, and you smile knowing that he might hate you, but he hates himself more. He hates that he wants you, because he does. He longs for some excitement, for something different than just performing the duties he was born into, so he closes his eyes and cries your name and pretends that he doesn’t know the things you do in the shadows. 

He doesn’t know the half of them. 

If he did, he might not come back. Then again, he probably would because he’s _addicted_. Sometimes you wish, he wouldn’t come back at all because this routine is starting to become predictable, and you would hate for it to become boring. 

 

Today the bathroom is too warm, and your skin feels like it’s peeling. Can anyone see the things you do? Does it stain your skin? Can Harry see? You try to see him more of him, go where he goes, see what he sees. When he notices you in a crowd of nobodies, he smiles shyly.

You really want him. 

 

You still like Bellatrix, even if she’s a little unhinged. She’s been in love with you for as long as can remember. You’re not sure if there is an important event in your life when she wasn’t present, mooning over you in that slightly nauseous fashion. 

Whilst others have said she stalks you, you rather think that you have to be intimidated for it to be stalking. All she does is follow, she wouldn’t touch you because to her, well, you’re God. 

You rather like Bellatrix because she doesn’t just _like_ your cruel side, that’s the only bit of you she wants. Sure, she thinks you’re charming and polite and intelligent, and those are the qualities she asks you to show to her parents.

But they’re not the ones that she wants. 

She wants you to be cruel to her, to hurt her over and over. You know then that there’s something wrong with Bellatrix, that her head isn’t quite in the right place. That unlike you, who keeps your monsters in perfect order, hers are hungry, savage, things that’ll eat anything that comes near. 

The two of you don’t fit together. 

You might be vicious and cruel, but not without reason; all Bellatrix wants, all she _really_ wants is meaningless violence. To be hurt because it is the only thing she knows because she’s been broken. And you are all she has left.

But it’s no fun playing with toys that have already been ruined. 

So, you do not play. 

Someone artless and tasteless had got to her first, and now she’s spoilt in your eyes, and you don’t touch things that are past their sell-by date. 

That doesn’t mean that Bellatrix is useless though, rather the opposite. You can be someone with her, that you can’t be with anyone else. You can get drunk on cheap alcohol and lie on her childhood bed together, not touching because she’s ruined, and she knows it. She understands that if she touches you, then you’ll never see her again, and to her, that’s worse than death. 

It’s romantic and ridiculous. 

So, the two of you lie there, on her purple butterfly duvet, staring out the open window at the stars that her entire family is named after. They haunt the sky and remind her that they will always follow her, and she will never escape their scrutiny.

Lesser people would care. 

You’re not a ‘lesser person’. 

Instead, you just stare at the sky, watching the stars blur together and feeling the banging in your head begin, and promising yourself that next time you’ll be more restrained, though you know you won’t. Although you’d never admit it, you live for these simple moments and those simple people that’ll always follow you regardless of the state you’re in. 

The best time is when she falls asleep and it’s just you and the stars, those blurred black stars, that stare accusingly from the abyss because your behaviour is no way to treat a lady.

Bellatrix isn’t a lady.

She’s just a broken thing that reaches for you in her dreams, and you shift away because you’re not ready to let go of this moment of clarity that she gives you.

You don’t want to admit you’re getting bored. 

 

So, you sit in her bathroom, the room is too cold, and you feel sick because you drank too much. But you just have to look in the mirror and you can see him. The answer to the question you didn’t know you were asking. You want to add him to your collection of used-up, worn out people, who weren’t as interesting as you thought they were. 

You miss him, even if you haven’t met him.

 

You still like Abraxas, even if you have to compete with his ego for attention. You’ve known him ever since school, he’s your favourite, and your first, and probably your last. Abraxas is the only one who knows _everything_ about you, and he loves it, in his own way. 

You are what he wishes he could be.

If _he_ was special. 

He’s not, he’s just rich. 

Every time you meet up with him, over luncheon and champagne, or expensive dinners and red wine, you tell him that it’s not the money that keeps you around, but you’re such a liar.

You think he knows.

Knows you’re such a fucking liar. 

It’s always been about the money, well the money and the sex. Abraxas is the only one you trust to use your body correctly, and you let him use it often enough. Always in the rooms with the thinnest walls and his wife standing just outside the door. 

It’s a gorgeous charade you play. 

The lover and the deceiver. 

The giver and the taker. 

Abraxas might know what you are, but that doesn’t mean he’s willing to give you up. You’ve heard him argue with everyone he loves over you, finding more and more petty ways to justify keeping you around, even when he knows he should let go. 

When the two of you are alone, he always laughs at all the others that don’t realise you play them like the finest instruments. You laugh too. Though you’re laughing at him because he doesn’t realise, he’s just like them, except he has more money.

Though, even that is starting to bore you now. Where is the fun in having everything you ever want at the tip of your fingers?

There isn’t any. 

 

You stay with Abraxas that night when he should be with his wife. His bathroom is different, there’s too much space. But there’s still a mirror and you can still sit and stare and remember. You were sitting with Abraxas earlier, too close, but everyone pretended that they didn’t see. You noticed Harry, the boy who had become your shadow, standing and watching you suspiciously. 

You raised your hand, in the motion of a greeting, and he looked away too fast. 

 

You still like Abraxas’ wife, even if she’s married to the only subordinate, you’d call a friend. Abraxas is very inattentive of his wife, never appreciates her as he should. He treats her like a diamond, a pretty stone that he shows off as an accessory at all his parties, all sweet and glittery, the thing that he looks at and admires but cannot bring himself to care about, rather like the Christmas decorations that adorn their house every December. 

You think she’s more like a flower. 

In that, she cannot be ignored. She needs to be fed and watered and taken care of, otherwise, she won’t blossom. And if Abraxas isn’t going to provide, then you _have_ to, it’s only common decency really. You don’t mind. Neither does she. 

After all, she’s a pureblood lady, she knows how the world works. 

As long as no one knows, she can seek out her pleasure wherever she cares to find it. As long as it isn’t vulgar or low class, she can get her satisfaction from whomever she chooses, and she’s chosen you, with a little encouragement, of course. 

Just a whisper in her ear, a well-applied compliment that makes her blush and Abraxas glare at you and hiss something about appropriate etiquette that you stopped listening to the second he opened his mouth. 

It’s a very high-class affair, the sort people like to read about in trashy magazines. 

It started with stares.

Then touches in passing. 

Then kisses in empty corridors. 

Then sex behind locked doors. 

When a party is in full swing, she touches your arm and looks at you with those baby blue eyes, blinking innocently because her husband is watching. You know Abraxas would never dream of starting an affair, well except with you, but that doesn’t count.

But his wife doesn’t need to know that. 

You tell her about the other girls her husband has never really had. 

It doesn’t make her cry, she’s too old for all that, but it does make her more determined to have you whenever she likes. Just to spite him. 

Marriage is such a petty thing. 

And even proper girls have a breaking point. 

She lets you fuck her up against the wall, her legs wrapped around you, her heels digging into your spine. She likes to trace it with her toes and tell you how dishonest you are. She says your skeleton is rotten and you laugh because she’s smarter than she looks.

She’ll keep your secrets because you please her. But as soon as you don’t, you know she’ll let her tongue be loose and her morals looser.

You think being a widower will suit Abraxas. 

Though you don’t want it to come to that because that’ll mean you’re bored of her. 

 

You’re back in your own bathroom. Staring. Waiting. Wondering. You want him alone. To seduce him the old-fashioned way: licked lips, sticky stares, blushing in the corridors. Until he gives in, and you can kiss him and taste him and practically eat him. 

It’s becoming a problem. 

 

You still like Harry, even if he’s too naïve to know that he wants you. He’s always around, always close by, and _always_ watching. Everyone says it’s the quiet ones that are the most dangerous, and if that’s the case you should be scared of the things Harry knows. 

You’re not. 

You doubt he understands what he sees if he really sees anything other than you. There would be no point pretending that you are not his entire world, that he lives and breathes and loves _only_ you despite barely having spoken any words. 

Actually, he’s spoken none at all to you.

You hope he’s falling in love all the same.

That he’s already fallen. 

That he’s plunged into that creature’s mouth, and he has been chewed up, ground to a pulp and swallowed and swallowed and swallowed. You hope he is scared of what he feels, ashamed even of what he’s fallen in love with, that he’s not as special as he’d like to think, because he’s fallen for the same person like everybody else. 

You like Harry because he is naïve, everyone else knew that you were monstrous even if they didn’t understand why, but Harry… Oh, Harry, he is different, he is special. He does not merely look at you, but drinks you up, eats the sight of you like a starving man. 

But he does not _know_ you.

Until, apparently, he does. 

He comes to you one day when you are alone, and you can’t help but lick your lips and swallow knowing that now he has willingly stepped into your territory, he is yours for the taking. But he is not here to be taken, nor eaten, nor even stared at. He is here to tell you that you disgust him. 

The word fizzes in the air. 

And for a second, he looks frightened, then determined. 

You just smile, that special one that glitters, and no one can resist, and ask him why he should think that. 

His nose wrinkles like a rabbit, and it’s cute, It makes you want to pat his head, and take his hands in yours, and then his mouth, and then hold him still while you get to your knees and teach him just how _disgusting_ you can be.

But he steps away as though sensing your intentions. He says you’re sickening, and that your mask is breaking, and that he sees the cracks that are forming, and that he can see the darkness that is pouring out of you like an infection. 

He says it spills across everything you touch, staining it with your scent, your mouth, your mark. 

He says he heard from Ginny the things you did. 

_Well, she does like her stories_ , you say with a smile.

And he knows the rumours about Lestrange 

_So, does everyone._

And he’s seen the bruises that blot Avery. 

_He’s always been clumsy._

And he knows why Alphard doesn’t talk to you, except for every third Friday. 

_Alphard doesn’t talk to many of his old friends._

And he’s seen how you treat Bellatrix.

_Has he met Bellatrix?_

And he’s seen you with Abraxas when you were at the party with someone else.

 _You’re allowed to talk to more than one person_. 

And he watched you fuck your best friend’s wife. 

_Did he like what he saw?_

He blushes, as many shades as a cherry tree but without the natural elegance. Words fail him, which makes his open mouth that much _cuter_. You want to sink your fingers into that mouth, press down on his tongue and pull at the corners until they rip.

You want to but you won’t.

Your Harry is much too precious for that purpose.

You don’t want to hurt him; you want to be nice. Or, at least, as nice as someone with such monsters in their head can be. You want to mould him and shape him and fashion him into that perfect version of himself, the one that most resembles you. 

It is good that he cannot see the things behind your eyes because he would not like your plans, because you have not yet made them beautiful to his eyes.

Instead, you smile and reach out to him. 

His hands are hot when you take them, hot and trembling. He’s scared and intrigued, and just like Alphard, he hates himself for it. Now that you think about it, he’s rather like all your previous ‘friends’.

There’s a determination in him, like Ginevra.  
There’s a wildness under his skin, like Lestrange.  
There’s a need to be hurt in him, like Avery.  
That’s hatred, like Alphard.  
There’s pity, like Bellatrix.  
There’s a self-righteousness, like Abraxas.  
There’s a cunningness, like Abraxas’ Wife. 

He’s simply a perfect combination of all the things you like, all the things you want.

This is going to be better than you thought. 

And it’s only confirmed that night when you break your rule and take him home and make him writhe under your touch, begging for your mouth and your tongue and your fingers, to touch and pull and press just right.

You think you’re not going to get tired of Harry any time soon. 

 

But later you're back in your bathroom, staring at the mirror. 

You are chronically bored; it is your disease. Things do not satisfy you for long. You like to sit in the bathroom and just stare at yourself in the mirror, wondering who made you this way. Was it your hopeless father and your dead mother? Or was it yourself? 

Did all these years and all these people turn you into a monster?

Your reflection never changes, but your insides do. Something has shifted under your flesh, people have left their marks, some more dramatic than others. However much you want them not to affect you, they do, in their own way. 

Each and every one of them has changed you. 

You continue to stare in the mirror, nothing changes, you’ve always loved your face, but it makes your skin crawl. 

You still like them all.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written too quickly, so sorry if it's not great.


End file.
